Members of Congress and their staff who know and care about defense are somewhere between alarmed and panicked at the emerging shape of the debt ceiling deal. (Consider this amazing on-the-record statement by Senator Joe Lieberman’s communications director to Jennifer Rubin just a few minutes ago: “Senator Lieberman is very concerned about rumors that the d

This afternoon Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) unveiled his own proposal to reduce to deficit. The plan, which purports to reduce the deficit by over $9 trillion over the next decade, does so by cutting discretionary spending and entitlements as well as by raising some revenue and counting savings on interest payments. Included among Coburn’s cuts is over $1 trillion from the Department of Defense budget.

“It’s specific, it’s detailed, it makes hard choices,” said Coburn in a press conference at the Capitol. “But it’s necessary.”

The president tries—and fails—to paint Republicans into a corner.

Not that long ago it looked like President Obama had Republicans right where he wanted them. As the debate over the 2011 budget played out on Capitol Hill, he threatened to veto the legislation if it cut one dollar more from defense spending than the budget request submitted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

It’s June 2025. Do you know where your fleet is?

The idea of a world without the benefit of preponderant American seapower may sound alarmist and farfetched. Unfortunately, those who follow military cutbacks and world affairs know that it isn’t. Indeed, the following scenario is all too plausible. . . .

In his budget speech last week, Barack Obama mounted his third attack on U.S. defense spending. In 2009 the White House directed Defense Secretary Robert Gates to terminate more than $300 billion in weapons programs, including the F-22 Raptor, the world’s most capable aircraft, and the Army’s Future Combat Systems family of vehicles. This past year, Gates volunteered $100 billion in Pentagon “efficiencies,” for which the administration rewarded him by slicing off another $78 billion. Now the president proposes to subtract an additional $400 billion from future military budgets.